LOS ANGELES — Michael J. Fox said he aimed to bring laughs and a dose of reality about day-to-day living with Parkinson's disease to a new NBC comedy loosely based on his life, his first lead role in a television show in 13 years. In the upcoming "The Michael J. Fox Show," the actor plays a father with Parkinson's who returns to work as a local newscaster on an NBC TV station in New York. To his surprise, his fictional family reacts with relief that he will be getting out of the house. The show draws from Fox's own experience to generate laughs and give viewers a sense of everyday life with Parkinson's, a nerve disorder that causes tremors. "The reality of Parkinson's is that sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it's funny," Fox, 52, said on Saturday at the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour. The show will not veer into dark humor, he said, because he did not see his disease that way. "There's nothing horrible on the surface about someone with shaky hands," he said. "There's nothing horrible about someone in their life saying, ‘God, I'm really tired of this shaky hand thing' and me saying, ‘Me, too.' That's our reality." The show, which debuts Sept. 26, is a high-profile bet by Comcast-owned NBC to lift its prime-time ratings. — Reuters
